Blizzcon post 6 – cataclysmic systems panel

The Q&A hinted to having talent tree announcements at the systems panel. Other times, they talked about the path of the titans & mastery character advancement features. The WoW game systems panel should be releasing a LOT of new information about what Cataclysm is going to feel like. As I gather information, I’ll post it here.Also don’t forget to check out wow.com’s live blog. They will eventually be posting pictures and stuff there. As my live stream gives information about the Diablo III Q&A, I’ll do my best to try and fill stuff in for it, too.

WoW Systems Panel

Game systems: Rated BGs, Guild Advancement, Mastery, and Paths of the Titans

Will have rated battle grounds for people who don’t like the small group arenas

Making improvements to the BG queue system (want short queues & week long featured BGs).

You would gain arena points & rating from participating in BG matches

Lose a BG – No rating loss, but you don’t get arena points. Will have personal & match making ratings.

Bringing back titles for battle ground play (ie. Lieutenant general). Ratings at end of Arena season with titles & mounts.

Passive bonuses (probably the Mastery system they’ve been talking about) will improve healing, damage, tanking – just for putting points in a specific tree. Mastery to modify & make characters more unique.

Changes to UI to show passive Mastery bonuses. May be able to get more mastery through gear. They showed how the UI would work for rogues – different trees have different stat focuses.

Mastery to improve the spec where you have the most points.

Path of the titans – Reward max- level characters. Will be working to unlock an Ancient glyph.

You can align with different titan cults. Not specific to classes or specs. Each path has 2 to 3 choices. No new glyph until 85. Changing the glyph UI.

Everyone will eventually get the Ancient glyphs at level 85. The glyphs will have ranks that will increase over time.

Q&A for WoW systems panel –

No guild alliance system or guild merger system. This type of raiding game play won’t be supported.

We’re also discussing a paid guild transfer service, to move your entire guild to a new server.

Guild halls? – Not a priority.

Showing who alts belong to? Something they would like to do, but not a priority (However, the D2 battle.net chat features announced yesterday would be something that makes this easier in the future).

WoW systems panel is done for the day.

Diablo 3 Q&A

Working on making D3 have less hacking.

PvP system: Haven’t announced specifics, but won’t support “go hostile at any time” game play.

Making a different skill system, won’t need synergies, but still need a breadth of customization options that are appropriate for final skill system.

Quests in D3 will grow & be better than D2. Want to vary game play experience & deliver story with interesting events.

Want to have a lot of content. Should be a compelling reason to do a lot of it (more like quest system in WoW – gets you to move around, go to other places, and do more interesting things). Want fast progression to be fun.

Want the world to feel like it’s a living world.

D3 Will not have UI mods.

Want to give payoff for fighting.

Rare items could be better than unique items. Tricky balance issues. May look at other roles the unique items could fill. Want randomly generated items to be more prominent.

Want people to be able to move quickly through the world. Want to reduce travel time as much as possible.

Items dropped on a per-player basis. Can’t take each other’s loot. Any item you see on the ground is pretty much for you.

Putting in tutorial system to teach new elements to players. Need to make sure players have easy introduction to the game. Want to make it easy to get into even if you aren’t a totally hard-core gamer.

PvE is first focus, but want to develop runes & skills that also support PvP.